Its women's day. And I know all the charade that will be played on this day all over. On FB many status messages would reek of this.
And I know some of the men closely, whose respect for women stops at role play, yet they would wish and stand right in front of the world, without an ounce of idea as to what the word "respect" signifies.
I have 100s of questions and my own answers for this discrimination, yet I am baffled, hurt, angry and sometimes edging on obsession to set it all right. This post is all about my tussle, various reasons I keep giving myself, you might find it stupid, far fetched, childish sometimes..but then these are questions noone can ever justify to me.
When I was younger in my teens I always wondered why the world looks so different for different species? For a man, the whole world, all the streets and corners, looked like their home. They could pee anywhere, they could be heard with a guffaw at every nook and corner. Eating paan, smoking cigarette, leching at a girl, passing comments..shamelessly, unabashedly without restraint
And then there are girls, trying to be civil, like guests in a foreign place, showing their manners, covering themselves up, holding their thoughts, scared of men around every nook and corner before they reach their actual home..
It always baffled and irked me. As I was a direct victim of this, being in a state and city which is infamous for such eve teasing, I had to change my lanes just to avoid some goons who would make it a point to be there at certain times when I crossed that road, and scare the shit out of me.
I dont know if I was born of feminist, its in my genes or its my sun sign (Sagittarius) which cries for equality, cried against any form of injustice(even the subtlest forms which goes unnoticed by many).
We were brought with neutral values, being a family of 3 daughters and 1 son. Be it education, household work, outside work, I never knew what it was to be a girl, cos there was no demarcation in anyway.
Me and my elder sister were encouraged to study science much more than my younger sister and brother cos we had better acumen I guess. My father felt very proud of our little achievements in studies, professional field as he would have for a son. All his aspirations lay on us, and we fulfilled in whatever ways we could. Being a girl never stopped us from anything. We would be out till late for our dance performances, my mom would never let us do any household chores(even if the maid dint come she would do utensils and our clothes but would insist on us not doing a thing apart from our studies and dance classes).
To begin with, none of us, be it we sisters or brother, carry our father's surname. We all have different surnames which has some literal meaning. It doesn't define our father's caste, any race or any village/country name. Its just a pretty second name,defining just US. (Once in our dance class, my father was addressed as Mr.Nirajan, Nirajan being my surname not his :))
Its not like I was born in a family where this was a practice. Even though there was equality on the face of it, there were subtle things which always baffled me. Like, why was my mom all the time in the kitchen while my father enjoyed his time outside of it? My mom would sometimes ask me to get something for my father, like serve him breakfast, water etc. and I would ask her "Can he not do it himself?" To that she would say "Achcha nahin lagta ki papa karen" (Does not look nice if your father has to do it)
And I would fight with her asking " You are the one who cooks, yet you do not expect to be servd, but Papa does not do a thing in the house then how come it looks bad to ask him to do his stuff?"
To that Ma would act exasperated and say "You always argue and never understand"
And I wanted to scream that I dint understand nor would I ever want to!
All this while, the man(Father) would be enjoying his lunch outside oblivious to the fights we women were having in the kitchen
Men expect a woman to be in a certain way, before she can be deemed as woman, to give her due. If she chooses to be different, if she is self sufficient, and expects to be treated like one, she does not qualify to be treated with respect, care and concern.
There are too many ways to show a woman , that you are less!
To begin with, why should a woman change her surname when she marries? why is it that her identity has to mingle and be over powered by her husband's? If she escapes that, then its the child's turn, to adorn his name with his father's surname.
The child, whom she bears in her womb for 9 months, bears the pain of child birth, is the one to feed and nurture the kid, has to give her husband's name as child's surname?
And if a woman wants to just stand against it all, to just say that she wouldn't change her surname nor will the child bear father's surname(not even hers, though logically and physically child should) but a new surname which does not reek of caste/creed, why is she treated like an outcast?
And I can go ahead and say that all this is something which even my own family will not stand upto. I know my sisters are OK with having their husbands surname getting attached to their children, probably they even feel a sense of pride. I recall having fights with my younger sis whose in-law's place and our place are in the same city. She would make it a point to go there first whenever she visited the city and spend more time there, before coming to our place. My father never liked it, like usual fathers would. Probably he was not a typical father with us. (I recall many of my friends saying how I could talk to my father on many subjects I could..like love,life, and other such disasters , where for them father meant discipline and nothing else. They were so scared of their fathers!)
And I used to swear that I would never do such a thing. If we marry we make a pledge to each other to be friends. Noone has an upper hand, noone's family weighs above another. Then why should a girl entertain guy's side by staying there, where a guy who deigns to stay at his wife's place is considered a sissy? Why is it that a man doing something like cooking once in a while is seen as greatness and for a woman its her job?
Why should a woman shift to a man's house after marriage,why is it that the so called ancestral lineage belongs to a man and a woman is just someone who fulfills it by bearing his child and giving it his name? Somewhere or the other a woman does give up to some of these notions and bends her ways, and I had always sworn never to do that. As I thought there is no rightful thing which allows that. Just why, why and more whys have surrounded me all through my childhood, adolescence and youth
Why should a woman be even an ounce less than a man? Many would say that if a man helps you a bit in kitchen or lets you work then you are blessed and you have hit a jackpot! But I say NO, cos for me it has to be as equal as an equilibrium or its NOTHING!
While I was writing the above paragraph I am reminded of a line from one of my fav songs - लेना देना नहीं दुनिया से मुझे बस तुझसे काम है ,यारा तेरे मेरे खर्चे में दोनों का ही एक दाम है...जहेनसीब तुझे चाहूँ बेतहाशा .... (I dont have to do anything with the world, Beloved in our expenditure both of us have the same value)
I think basis of all this difference stemmed from 2 facts, physical
strength of men above women and the biological clock. Those are the
only things which separates their capabilities. So based on that, society
decided on this:
"Man you are the provider, and woman you are the
nurturer. Women dont have the capacity to earn, so the one who can earn
has the privilege of deciding who goes where, whose name who bears,
whose identity goes for a180 degree shift.
Since men are
capable of having a child even in their 50s and that equation for a
woman changes drastically, so a man would always hunt and a woman would
die to settler after mid 30s. It has nothing to do with charm, wit and
personality of an individual. Any woman who dares to differ, hopes to be
equal will be laughed at....PERIOD!"
Those who claim to be modern and forward thinking, even there the differences show up, in subtle ways but strong enough for me to sense it. And my closes family is also not a far cry from that.
Cos even with my family, I have heard from my own sisters at times that I am trying to be "unconventional".
I dont know what is it that made me into who I am, but every thing that I
have felt about being a woman is my very own, not based on what
"feminism" means nor "trying to" be something. Maybe its my sun sing
which cries for equality or maybe its something ingrained in me, nothing
to do with where I was born or what I learnt from my surroundings.
My elder sis who was good in studies and did MBA, is happy to leave it all to settle down with 2 kids. She can happily flaunt a LOUI VUITTON bag which she has bought with her husband's money and I simply can't. My only pride is in MY VERY OWN capability to achieve something, buy something, be of use to my parent's with my money. Every atom of my being rejects this notion, so if my idea of happiness is based on some values I built for myself, and it does not match most, does it become wrong? I never stopped to think if it is!
These so called "culture" vultures are spread all around, like virus. You can see it in so many serials, big houses claiming of spick-and-span culture where women stand around men in the house, while men sit and chat and women are serving tea and snacks. Thats what they project as great indian culture and every household should be a replica of that. Even if wives are earning well, are political leaders, but their actual and real values lie in handling the household, thats thier DUTY. You might be an accomplished woman, but at the same time you are the one staying with inlaws and attending to their needs. If such things are shown as part of culture, then what is it suppoed to mean? That men have superiorty and they are the ones whose family needs to be taken care of, so if parents have only daughters, god knows who would take care of them.Such things only corrupt minds further. Injecting imbecile ideas, and making them as mark of something good, defining something "cultured". Any woman who rejects such ideas, becomes a vamp!
And thats why in the movies we see 50 year olds like Samlan and SHuah rukh wooing 20 somethings like Deepika and Priyanka.
Hmm..so maybe...this whole logic is probably based on the belief that men are meant for something bigger and better than what women can achieve? ! And women are just aids in letting men do that, while being by their side in various forms..wife, mother..yet never achieving the glory.
The world could have worked if only ACTUALLY women were a lesser lot. Then they could have done with relegating into background. But unfortunately there are brilliant women, in terms of intelligence, work culture, dedication and sense of responsibility. And if you are good, you cant do with what others dish out the role for you!
So why is it that you are a single woman of a certain age(crossing market defined marriageable age), earning well enough to own a house, buy things that you like, fending for yourself as well as sending money home for your parents, occasionally going for vaccations you dreamt of (on your own expense maybe not staying in 5 stars but happy with whatever you can manage with your own money)..still your biological clock makes your parents(and sometimes even you) fear loneliness lying ahead. The only respite is marriage in our society. And then comes along someone who might be earning 6 times that you do, and expectation is that you have to leave all that you built for yourself to move to a place and with someone you have hardly known. You have strived for many things and all that becomes negliglbe just cos you are a woman and things change only for you? And you like an idiot trade your financial indepdnence, your moments of glory, your space for the unknown. Just cos marriage is the ultimate goal of every woman's life! Thats how society eats away your real personality.
I know this post is as fragmented as my scattered brain and thought process these days.
Yet in-spite of all the set backs, disillusions, lying low, losing passion..I believe there is still that something sparkling deep inside me, my womanhood, my beauty...which will outshine the darkness..nothing will ever malign it, not even my own self or my fluctuating confidence.
